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Joined 8 months ago
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Cake day: 14 February 2024

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  • Home made pea soup with a ham bone is my all time favourite soup, but I don’t have ham very often. I always joked with my mom that the uglier the pea soup is in the fridge, the better it will taste when you reheat it.

    My easy soup is to pick 4-6 items from: mushrooms, carrots, leeks or onion, broccoli stems or fennel, and frozen peas. I add soy sauce to the broth for an umami flavour. I don’t ever have anything measured, but I do taste and sample a lot along the way.

    I like to sauté my mushrooms with garlic in a pan, cook off the moisture, then add soy sauce and spices and let that simmer for a while. I don’t know if it makes a difference, but I like to think it infuses the mushrooms with more flavour.

    I’ll try throwing in some salsa next time. My mom always put tomatoes in her soup and they were good, maybe it’ll turn out similarly.



  • It’s hard to find good quality meat these days, I eat a lot less meat than I used to.

    The quality is not what it was 5-10 years ago and the prices are much higher. When I go grocery shopping I feel like I scour the meat section for anything that is both a good price and looks good, and most of the time I just leave unsatisfied. I bought a chest freezer so now I stock up when there’s an actually good deal.

    Vegetables have gotten worse too. I have to double check everything at the super store near me. Even things like beets and potatoes spoil quickly like they’re very old stock. I have to feel and smell everything before I buy it.


  • That could be part of it.

    My grandmother grew up in a poor town during the depression and she considered it a cardinal sin to throw out “edible” food. My mom grew up poor too and she cooks much the same way, but she’s okay with throwing things out. Mom taught my brothers and I the basics, but I never really needed to cook much until I moved out.

    I got a lot of experience with less common foods growing up — recipes like pig-feet ragout and recycling leftovers and trimmings and stems into soup or stew or casseroles all the time. A lot of those older recipes that my mom and grandma made are lost to me though. I should really ask my mom for more of them.

    I’d love a movement to revive the old ways of cooking in accessible ways.

    I think another issues is I can make a great tasting and highly nutritious soup from spare veggies and broth in half an hour, but making broth at home (from essentially waste materials) takes hours to brown+boil+sieve. It’s easier to just pick up a costco club pack of chicken/beef broth.